Two Questions...

[leahbobet]

...both spawned by the never-ending parade of posts about how terrible Twilight is.*

1) So two major YA series hit big in the last ten years: Twilight and Harry Potter. In the early part of each series, you saw what can be charitably called low production values in terms of craft, plots that revolved around blatant wish-fulfillment, and wholesale rips of the tropes of already established subgenres. Potter is the poster child for mainstream acceptance. Twilight is excoriated regularly in newspapers, the internets, and local bookstores in reenactments of the Five Minutes' Hate.

What's the difference? What causes that?

I have my own theory, but I want to hear yours.


2) Where do people get the idea that exposing a child to a worldview or idea at all means the child will automatically agree with, adopt, and adhere to that worldview or idea?

Really, peoples. You met kids?


*Haven't read it, not gonna, no opinion on the matter.

Comments

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

1. I find Twilight both unsettling in ungood ways and unfun, whereas I find Potter unsettling in ungood ways, but basically fun.

I don't think that's necessarily the difference for most people, but it's the difference for me. (Thus my this-is-ridiculous-but-I-kind-of-adore-it appreciation of many books with similar content done in more entertaining ways.)

2. I don't think my recent funny-thing-happened-at-the-barn bit falls into the category of posts-about-how-terrible-Twilight is, but just in case: I don't, of course. But I do think that people sometimes/often gravitate towards stuff that reinforces a worldview they believe in or (in the case of kids in particular, though they're likely as not to grow out of it) are experimenting with. So I think a certain amount of leaning on a set of assumptions that a kid seems to be lapping up in a book is not necessarily a bad thing.

Can I ask a question? Why are people suddenly freaking out about the series? Not you, but I've seen a bunch of stuff lately about it, and man, nothing people are upset about wasn't basically there in book one, years ago. Why has slamming it suddenly become the new black?

[ex-fandrogy.livejournal.com]

My guess is that the upcoming film has created extra buzz.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

I don't think my recent funny-thing-happened-at-the-barn bit falls into the category of posts-about-how-terrible-Twilight is

Nope. Thinking more about the reams of internet that are recently devoted to concerned essays about/mocking of/outrage against/etc., which, all knowing me, I am really just...over now.

The funny thing is (and maybe it's to do with where I'm looking), the slam-Twilight conversations don't seem to involve leaning on kids' assumptions. They're conversations between and targeted to adult audiences: not talking to kids about book content, but about kids and book content.

Can I ask a question? Why are people suddenly freaking out about the series? Not you, but I've seen a bunch of stuff lately about it, and man, nothing people are upset about wasn't basically there in book one, years ago. Why has slamming it suddenly become the new black?

I have no idea. But I suspect it has something to do with it never even hitting adult radar until there was a movie. Nobody ever freaked out about Pullman before they optioned The Golden Compass either.

(Trick to avoiding excoriation and censorship for your book? Don't sell the movie rights. You can say anything until then!)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Oh, good. I guessed not, but I keep overreacting to everything this week so I figured, why stop now? :-p

The funny thing is (and maybe it's to do with where I'm looking), the slam-Twilight conversations don't seem to involve leaning on kids' assumptions. They're conversations between and targeted to adult audiences: not talking to kids about book content, but about kids and book content.

Not just where you're looking, alas. Insert so many nods that I look like a bobblehead.